One Week in Sussex (or: Seven Stages of Grief with a Dying Detective)
by MissMollyBloom
Summary: There was a line Mycroft has in the Christmas Special about how he never should have left Sherlock in solitary confinement for a week. With this, many of us Sherlollians saw our headcanons destroyed – particularly the idea of how Sherlock could have spent his last few days as a free man with Molly. But I'm not one to let the canon get in the way of my fun! Set immediately after HLV
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** OK, so maybe instead of working on one of my other WiPs now I've finished "The Handler", I've gone and started a new one. This one has been in my mind since I first saw TAB.

And though there is Angst, I promise no Character Death (despite the title). In fact, I plan to keep it as canon-compliant as possible. We'll see how that goes!

Thanks again to any and all of you who commented on my work - especially the last chapter of "The Handler" which I posted yesterday. Your encouragement is what keeps me going in inspires me to find time to write in my (admittedly crazy) life!

Enough rambling. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Shock**

It was a ridiculous last request, even for Sherlock Holmes. He'd never expected his brother to agree to it. But then, Sherlock always knew that Mycroft's distain for emotions was always more of a petulant protest than pure belief.

Sherlock had no doubt that acquiring a cottage in Sussex wouldn't be any issue - particularly when Janine had just bought him a delightfully charming little property - as far as he could tell from the photos.

No, it was the other part which would cause more problems for Mycroft than anything he'd ever asked his older brother to do for him. Harder even than the task of asking the Dean of King's College to let Sherlock continue his studies after his fourth-straight semester interrupted by substance abuse.

No, a mere academic would be child's play compared to Mycroft's new foe. Sherlock feared that even his brother, for all his practiced skills in international diplomacy, would struggle to find a way to win over this opponent.

After all, a wronged and angry Molly Hooper was a force to be reckoned with.

Sherlock could imagine the scene. His brother, hiding in the shadows of Bart's basement, waiting to catch Molly on her way home after a long day. Too tired to raise the same level of anger she showed Sherlock that day in the lab, all those months ago.

"Your presence has been requested," would be his opening statement, his voice echoing off the walls while Molly's breath caught in her throat with the shock.

One beat, maybe two, then it would dawn on Molly what Mycroft was asking, and who he was asking it for.

"If my presence is requested, then he can damn-well come here and request it himself," eyes full of fury, directed at Mycroft but meant for his brother.

She would turn to walk away.

"No, Doctor Hooper, he can't."

The words would stop her. The colour would drain from her face.

"Magnussen," she would whisper to herself. She would have already seen the story, would have worked out the link. After all, Molly was already well aware of where Sherlock was the night he was shot.

Mycroft would nod so slightly that the surveillance cameras wouldn't be able to catch any record of his acknowledgment.

"If the case is over, why does he need me?" Her tone would soften somewhat, but her eyes still piercing, unnerved by Mycroft's power, prestige or position.

"I promised not to say."

"Then I promise you, I won't go."

Sherlock knew this would be the case, so he gave his brother the one sentence he knew would work to soften her resolve.

"My brother is going to die."

In the end, it wasn't that hard to have Molly Hooper come to Sussex for what would be his last week on earth. But making her stay would be another matter altogether.

She arrived the next morning, clutching her overnight bag against her chest like armour as she walked down the cobbled-path to the porch where Sherlock stood, waiting, resting against the front door and taking a long drag of a cigarette.

No point denying himself anymore. All his sins could be remembered.

Seeing him, she dropped her bag at his feet with a thud, and ripped the cigarette from between his lips.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Her eyes were fire, her tone pure fury.

"Trying to have a smoke," he nodded to the cigarette, smouldering on the ground. For a moment he considered picking it up, but thought better of it, crushing it with his heel.

He braced himself for a lecture, a description of the biggest lung tumour she'd ever seen, or what a life-long smoker's lung tissue looks like.

Instead, she reached down, picked up her bag, and headed inside the cottage, giving him no choice but to follow her.

She stood in the small parlour, surveying the mess – piles of books strewn all over the floor, pieces of furniture still covered to protect them from disuse and dust, sun shades which had not been shifted, making the room far more claustrophobic – especially now he had joined her.

"Where's my room?" She asked, business-like.

"… ahhh, um…" he stumbled, a first for him in her presence. Usually failure of language was something he evoked in her – rather than vice versa. But he really hadn't expected Mycroft to succeed in getting her to come, so he hadn't devoted any brainpower to the problem of what to do when she got there.

She looked at him, her eyes beginning to narrow with impatience.

"Well, there are two bedrooms," he began, pausing to read her face which was infuriatingly blank. "But only one of them has a bed."

Molly smirked. "That's fine."

Sherlock was shocked, especially considering what happened the last time he had shared a bed with her. Or more specifically, what happened the next morning when her fiancée Tom dropped by to find a scene which both Sherlock and Molly knew was nothing more than the result of a bone-tired consulting detective crashing in his bolt-hole and not having the heart to request that the owner of said bolt-hole vacate her bed for the one in the spare room because, as Sherlock had told her time and time again, he needed the space.

The only reason he was half-naked, as he protested to Tom, was because he always slept that way.

Of course, Tom was having none of it.

He had left Molly and Tom to fight it out in the kitchen while he slunk away down the fire escape he'd used to come in.

The morning Molly slapped him was indeed the first time he'd discovered that her engagement was over. And he truly was sorry, no matter how poorly he'd expressed the sentiment at the time.

So he was shocked at Molly's willingness to recreate that event, sans fiancé.

Sherlock followed her into the room, only to find her gathering up Sherlock's things, ready to shove them into his hands the moment he appeared in the doorway.

"You can have the lounge, Sherlock." She said coolly.

He nodded. He wasn't going to protest.

After all, she was his guest.

* * *

 **A/N:** I hope you like it. I've almost finished Chapter 2 so hopefully I can post it in the next few days!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N - Content warning for drug use.

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement!

* * *

 **Chapter 2 - Anger**

He couldn't fault her anger - dragged out of her life in London on the whim of a man she was barely on speaking-terms with. There was no wonder she looked at him with such fury in her wide brown eyes, And Sherlock found himself entirely unsurprised when she slammed the door in his face.

If he closed his eyes, he could imagine her.

At first she stood with her back against the door, ready to brace it should he use force to open it. She would stay there for a moment before taking one step, and then another, into the middle of the room. She would pause for a moment, checking to see if he would try to talk to her, try to coax her out, and when he didn't, she took a breath, luxuriating in the silence.

She hoped that slamming the door in his face would be an act of strength convincing enough for even herself to believe it. But as she stood alone in the bedroom, the low light of the late afternoon giving the room an unearthly glow, she would find herself suspended in the moment, entirely lost as to her purpose, her plan and what to do next.

Walking over to the large, four-poster bed, she smoothed the duvet, kicked off her shoes and lay down without bothering to get under the covers.

Staring up at the ceiling, she considered not only her predicament and the strange events which had preceded it, but the very fact that she now found herself in the middle of Sussex, alone, with Sherlock Holmes. Putting aside the fact that years ago, when all she felt for him was a mere schoolgirl-crush, she'd had one or two fantasies about a time in the future when he would retire from detective work, leave London behind, retire, settle down somewhere like this – and preferably with someone like her.

But those were mere dreams, fantasies.

Now the reality was here, it felt more like a nightmare.

Mycroft's words replayed in her mind. "My brother is going to die."

The more she thought about it, the more she realised that what she found even more troubling than Mycroft's cryptic claim that Sherlock was going to die was the fact he'd asked for her in his final days.

But why?

Eventually, it wasn't curiosity which drove Molly out of her room to face Sherlock. It was a feeling much more base and primal – she was hungry.

Sherlock could tell just how hungry she was based on the way her eyes lit up when she saw that a food delivery had arrived sometime during the two hours she had stayed in her room.

It was all her favourites – catalogued from every memory of every meal Sherlock had shared with her – every snack in the Bart's break room, every lunch in the cafés littered around the corner from the hospital, every time she'd ordered take-away when he'd stayed at her flat.

The small dining-table was covered. Snacks of crisps and chocolate, jam doughnuts and digestives; Pasta and sauces – which was always her favourite meal to cook at home, he'd noted not only from the sauce stains on her wrist from a pot heated too high, but also from the few times she had cooked for him. And ice-cream. Molly always had a penchant for ice-cream. Topped off with warm chocolate fudge on a particularly bad day.

And he had a feeling there would be quite a few bad days ahead.

Molly picked up each item and surveyed them. She didn't dare show him any signs of approval. Not yet. Her confusion at the situation – not to mention the tensions in their relationship of late – kept her emotions under guard for now.

There was one item Molly hadn't noticed. An unmarked package sat on the table, its brown-wrapping incongruent incognito among the labels and brand-names of Molly's favourite products.

Sherlock eyed the package, but Molly acted as if it wasn't even there.

"I see we're fully stocked," Molly said, nodding at the food.

"Do you think I'd drag you out here to starve?" It was an attempt at humour, although judging from Molly's reaction, one which had failed.

"Why did you drag me out here, Sherlock?"

How could he explain all that had happened in the last few months? Everything that had led to his desperate act on Christmas Day.

"I killed someone."

Well, that was a start.

He waited for her horror, her concern, her anger. Her response was not what he expected. A gentle hand covered his own.

"I know." She said. Her wide, brown eyes full of compassion.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. How did she know?

"I told Mycroft not to tell you," he said pacing across the kitchen in frustration.

She didn't follow him.

"I didn't need anyone to tell me anything," her tone was indignant. "I'm no great consulting detective, but I can put two and two together."

"Really?" He knew really shouldn't be goading her, not with the fractures in relationship of late. But he couldn't help himself. "By all means, Detective Hooper, deduce me."

He could see the anger rising in her, caught the slight flush of frustration and the her cheeks reddened by adrenaline. Whatever she had to say, it was something she'd wanted to for a while.

"You want me to believe that your relapse was for the case - that it was a planned ruse to give Magnussen a reason to pursue you - a headline for his papers: 'The Man in the Hat with a Needle in his Arm'."

"I was thinking 'Detective in a Drug Den,' but you got the gist." He almost laughed, but the look on her face robbed it from his lips.

"There's only one problem with that story."

"Really? What?"

"Lady Smallwood approached you after John and Mary's wedding."

"She did."

"I remember. You got the call in my flat one night."

"I did. But I don't see what the timing of her call has to do with anything. Whatever I did was in service of her case."

Molly reached out, touching his hand as it sat idly on the bench. "I know you want to believe that, Sherlock."

He snatched his hand away. "Of course I want to believe it - it's the truth."

Undeterred by his anger or withdrawal, Molly continued, her resolve still strong, her tone still even and calm.

"If I accept that you relapsed in service of Lady Smallwood's case-"

"-which I did," he butted-in.

"And if Lady Smallwood contacted you after John and Mary's wedding-"

"-which she did."

"Then what did you do after you left the wedding early?"

Sherlock stopped. A memory he'd been hiding, even from himself, returned.

* * *

Sherlock knew Molly he seen him leave the wedding. She always saw him. He almost expected her to come bounding down the walkway as he swept away, an errant knight clad again as he was in his Belstaff armour.

But she didn't. She couldn't. Not with her fiancé already twice-wronged that day.

So Sherlock left alone. He left all thoughts of Molly and her ridiculous fiancé behind. Those thoughts could keep their company with the sweet and sour, joy and sadness he felt got John and Mary's happiness.

He didn't think about his friend, his life beginning – and a new life growing within his new wife. A fresh start.

He didn't think about Mycroft's ominous words – the spectre at the feast. Didn't dare give them any credence.

And certainly didn't consider what would be happening between Molly and Tom. Didn't fan into flame the tiny spark of hope that Molly would escape a relationship with someone so obviously her inferior. Or dare to think what would happen if he dwelt on why it bothered him so much that she might soon be married, too.

No, those thoughts did not filter through his mind at all, did not plague him, did not play over and over as he sat in the cab on his way back to London.

And they certainly didn't contribute to what happened next.

Or so he kept telling himself.

The route the cabbie took was though the south, which was strange considering that the Orangery was in the north of the city.

It was only when the cab stopped outside a particularly disreputable building that Sherlock realised he has asked to be taken there. To a place he hadn't been for over five years.

He should have asked the cabbie to turn around, or straight back to Baker Street, to safety.

He should have. But he didn't.

Like negative to positive ions, Sherlock was again drawn to his old habits.

It didn't take long for him to score. The old routine remembered and re-enacted perfectly.

Back in the cab, and back to Baker Street. He might have been repeating old patterns, but passing out in a drug den wasn't one of them. He still had his pride, and his desires for the comforts of home. Not to mention his clean syringe which he knew was still sitting safely in the Moroccan case hidden under the third loose floorboard in John's old room.

Which was precisely where he found it when he arrived back home.

The act of shooting up, while not one he'd practiced for years, was as familiar as brushing his teeth. So practiced was he back when his usage was at its peak.

He closed his eyes, and waited for oblivion.

He didn't expect that oblivion would sound very much like the voice of Molly Hooper.

"Sherlock? Are you home?" Came her voice, although he couldn't see its owner.

He didn't bother responding. Disembodied voices often didn't require human interaction, he reasoned.

"I used my spare key. I hope that's ok?" the voice persisted.

He laughed, "How can you hold it, tiny voice?" he asked, his eyes still closed, the voice still without an owner.

"Maybe Tom was right," Molly muttered under her breath, "Maybe you are drunk."

The name of the fiancé snapped Sherlock into consciousness. He knew Tom would never have a place in his mind in this state. Only the real Molly would talk about him.

Molly was there. In his flat.

Knowing she wouldn't approve of his choice of relaxation technique, he decided to play into her expectations.

He stood up, staggering to her, recreating as best he could the patterns of speech and faltering steps that plagued him on the night of John's stag night.

"I've had a little, yes, some, a bit, well – a lot".

He stumbled as he walked, placing his hands on each of her shoulders as if he needed her support.

"Molly. You are real. Really here." He squeezed her shoulder as if to test her corporeality.

"Yes…" Molly stared up at him. Definitely confused.

He hoped to her he seemed fine. Only slow. Calm. Not the man who had a natural high solving a murder in progress.

"I solved crimes today, Molly." A boast, like a proud young boy who had just learned to put on his shoes all on his own for the first time.

"I know," Molly said, leading him over to the lounge where she tried to guide him to sit.

As he flopped onto the lounge, he pulled her with him. He held her on his lap, the yellow bow in her hair ticking his nose.

"Does Tom solve crimes?" He asked, his hand idly playing with the taffeta of her petticoat. A hand with a mind of its own, a hand that was very tempted to see what the skin of her upper-thigh felt like.

A hand that was stilled by her hand on his.

"Stop." She said, standing up. "You don't know what you're doing." She said, taking a step towards the door.

He stood too. "You came here, Molly Hooper. And from what I can tell, unlike me, you are entirely in your right mind." He stalked towards her. Pretence of drunkenness falling from his face for a moment.

She backed away as he continued towards her. Slowly backing her into the doorway until her back was flush against the closed door.

"I was," she paused her eyes widening as he continued to encroach upon her, "I was worried about you." It was an attempt at strength, an explanation which justified her actions. But any strength was muted by the wavering in her tone.

"Don't be," he said, before seizing her face in his hands and kissing her soundly. His tongue plunged into her mouth, staking claim to is as his conquered territory.

Shocked as she was, she didn't resist. For a moment, it seemed as though she was more than yielding to his capture, but was willing to take him just as he had taken her.

But then she pulled back, her eyes wide.

"You don't taste drunk."

"No," he admitted.

Then she saw it, the Moroccan case, lying open on the kitchen table next to his tourniquet and discarded needle.

"How long?" she asked.

"Just tonight." She looked at him sceptically. "Just tonight," he repeated with more force.

"Did you write a list?" She asked.

From his pocket he took out the folded and torn scrap of paper on which he'd written the words -

 _Cocaine – 7% Solution_

\- and handed it to her.

"It was a slip. It won't happen again. Please don't tell John, or Mary, or-"

"Mycroft?" She added. They were both there the last time, more than five years ago, when he, a much more dangerous and habitual user then, came into Bart's. It mas luck or fate or divine intervention that the person he ran into was Molly – still new to the hospital and not yet accustomed to Sherlock's habits and ways.

Molly - who saw in him the same signs of addiction she'd nursed her sister through.

Molly - who knew enough of Sherlock already to know he wouldn't stop.

Molly - who had already received a visit from Mycroft and accepted the assignment of reporting to the elder Holmes any of the troubling actions of the younger one.

Molly - who that night pretended that she was charmed by him when he came in and asked for some help with a non-existent case when really all he needed was access to some benzodiazepine.

Molly - who listened to his story about an injury in the line of duty and the pain in his leg which wouldn't go away.

Molly - who pretended to be moved by his crocodile tears.

Molly - who lured him into her office and told him to wait while she saw what she could do.

Molly - who locked the door, ignoring his protests, and called Mycroft, leading to his last, and to-date most successful stay in rehab.

Molly - who was ultimately the reason he got clean, and had stayed clean for so long.

"Molly," he said on the night of the Watsons' wedding. Her name a plea, a promise, a petition to god. "Please don't tell them."

She scoffed. "So what?" She rounded on him, "You give me the big big eyes and the deep deep voice and you expect me to lie for you?"

She slapped him, so hard he could feel the sting of her engagement ring as is tore into his cheek, leaving a mark.

Still infuriated, she moved to slap him again, but he caught her hand, less than an inch away from his already torn flesh.

His fingers curled around hers, gently. "It won't happen again," he promised. And in that moment he truly did mean it.

Without word or promise, Molly left.

Sherlock lay on the lounge and promptly passed out.

When he awoke and the drugs had left his system, he had no memory of what had cut his cheek.

* * *

Back in Sussex, months later, Sherlock's eyes grew wide at the newly-uncovered memory.

"You were there," he said, rubbing his cheek idly.

"Yes. I was." Molly began unpacking the food, a clear indication to him that she wasn't ready to talk about it – at least, not yet.

He watched her work, all the while holding the one package she neglected. He turned it over and over in his hand. It felt odd, too light for its size and the paper, too crisp for something so worn.

"Brown paper packages tied up with string," he muttered, but Molly didn't hear him.

"So, what's for dinner?" Molly asked when she had finished. Her voice caring a tone of emotional detachment that Sherlock knew wouldn't last forever.


End file.
